


Just a Game

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Childhood, Cleverness, Games, Gen, Legacies, Peace, Stick Swordfighting, Tricks, War, Wishes, fathers and sons, playing war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 21:56:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13510563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: War is just a child's game Gary and Jon play while their fathers watch and talk.





	Just a Game

Just a Game

Roald was the most powerful man in the realm, and yet with Jon’s nursemaid abed with a hacking cough that made her lungs rattle in her chest and that definitely shouldn’t be risked spreading to the heir to the throne, he had somehow found himself cast in the role of nursemaid. Lianne, who had entertained and cared for Jon herself throughout the nursemaid’s week long illness, had this morning widened brown eyes soft as a hunted doe’s at him while asking him to look after Jon because her weary bones needed a rest. Since he would’ve tugged the stars down from the sky if she had requested it of him, he had agreed without hesitation. 

The hesitation only came later when Jon, who was willful in his whims, insisted on playing in the courtyard with his cousin Gary. Like generations of Naxens who had faithfully served the Conte line, Gary was Jon’s righthand man, which meant being the mastermind behind Jon’s worst mischief. Gary had inherited his father’s cleverness, and, when he was around, the trouble Jon was inclined to create more than doubled. 

Fortunately Roald had managed to convince Duke Gareth, who could prevent the craziest outbursts of his son’s insanity, to accompany him to the courtyard to watch their children engage in the merry misadventures of youth. 

“I don’t know how I came to be out here, playing nursemaid to my son.” Roald shook his head as he settled onto a stone bench, silver robes swirling around him. 

“Easy answer.” Duke Gareth waited until Roald was seated to slide onto the bench beside him. “My sister asked you to, sire, and you never could refuse her anything.” 

This was indisputable, and deciding not to argue it, Roald replied, tone brisk as the spring breeze rippling through their hair, “That’s my excuse. What’s yours, Your Grace?” 

“My king requested my presence.” Duke Gareth arched a thin eyebrow. “I never could refuse my king anything, Your Majesty.” 

With the ties of kinship and fealty binding them together, they lapsed into a companionable silence as Jon and Gary determined what game to play. 

“Let’s play war.” Jon picked up a stick that had fallen from the elm overhead and waved it about as if it were a sword forged in Raven Armory. 

“I’m going to send you slinking home with your tail between your legs just like I did last time we played war.” Gary scooped up his own stick and clutched it in a guard position, wasting no energy on frivolous, flamboyant motions. 

Frowning at the folly of small boys seeking fun in warfare, Roald sighed so that only Duke Gareth could hear. “Have you noticed that boys always want to play war and never want to play peace?” 

“Of course I’ve noticed. I’m in charge of training the pages, after all,” remarked Duke Gareth dryly. “Your Majesty must understand that while men desire the stability and prosperity of peace, boys long for the excitement and glory of warfare.” 

“War is just a game for them.” Roald jerked his chin at Jon and Gary, who were swinging their sticks at each other. Their blows were more likely to land on one another’s sticks or to miss their targets completely than to hit the other’s flesh. That suited Roald, who winced whenever his son bruised, fine. “Just like it was for my father and the boys he marched off to war. To those boys, war was just a game they played when they were children until an enemy archer or swordsman pierced through that illusion, but by the time they realized the horror war truly war, they were dead as tombstones.” 

“We work diligently for peace every day so our son might never know war.” Duke Gareth was stroking the hole that had once been a finger. 

“Yes.” Roald nodded as Jon and Gary chased one another around the courtyard, screaming taunts that were undermined by wild gales of laughter. “My dream is that for our sons war will forever be just a game they played when they were children.” 

“You’re from Tusaine.” Jon’s shout echoing across the courtyard announced like a bell toll that the boys had reached the juncture in the game where they identified whom each side represented. “I’m from Tortall. We’re fighting over the Drell like always.” 

Most boys, Roald thought, would have retorted that they didn’t want to be from Tusaine, but Gary was more devious. 

“If I’m from Tusaine, I can have a hundred wives.” Gary, who was still at the stage where he would bolt screeching if girls tried to kiss him on the cheek, made this gloat sound impressive. 

“No, you can’t, because I’m the one from Tusaine with a hundred wives now.” Jon yesterday had explained to Roald in marvelous detail how gross girls who weren’t his mother or his nursemaid were, but if Gary acted as if something was desirable, Jon believed it was. Gary had always been able to manipulate Jon into surrendering a toy in the nursery he had been clinging to stubbornly by feigning that a different one was the best. 

“Your son could trick a man into believing that a swamp was valuable land.” Roald chuckled, amused by his nephew’s antics. 

“The Tyrans do quite well for themselves despite their country being one gigantic swamp,” pointed out Duke Gareth with a slight, slanted smile. 

“That’s because they have to in order to survive the swamps,” Roald countered. 

“Yes, that’s what I was saying, Your Majesty.” Duke Gareth’s response made Roald wonder if his Prime Minister was too smart for him in much the same way that Gary’s quick wits left Jon in the dust. 

“I intend to leave our sons more than swamps.” Roald hoped that a strong declaration would allow him to have the last word. “That’s my point, and that’s my vision.”


End file.
